ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]

The question in the case has nothing, whatsoever, to do with strip searches. It turns entirely on the relationship between an affadavit, sworn by cops and signed by a Judge, attached by a staple to a warrant. Both documents clearly state what is to be searched. The warrant says John Doe's person only. The affadavit says "The search should include all persons in the house."

The majority makes its case as follows

The face of the search warrant here,
however, does not grant authority to
search either Jane or Mary Doe. The
block designated for a description of the
person or place to be searched specifically
names John Doe, and identifies and
describes his residence. Nothing in that
portion of the printed warrant refers to any
other individual, named or unnamed, to be
searched. Seeking to remedy this
omission, the officers argue that the
warrant should be read in light of the
accompanying affidavit which requested
permission to search “all occupants” of the
residence. They conclude that the warrant
should be read in “common sense”
fashion, as supplemented by the affidavit.
If that contention is correct, then police
had legal authority to search anybody that
they encountered inside the house when
they came to execute the warrant.
To be sure, a warrant must be read
in a common sense, non-technical fashion.
United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102,
109 (1965). But it may not be read in a
way that violates its fundamental
purposes. As the text of the Fourth
Amendment itself denotes, a particular
description is the touchstone of a warrant.
U.S. Const. amend. IV. The requirement
of a particular description in writing
accomplishes three things. First, it
memorializes precisely what search or
seizure the issuing magistrate intended to
permit. Second, it confines the discretion
of the officers who are executing the
warrant. Marron v. United States, 275
U.S. 192, 196 (1927). Third, it “inform[s]
the subject of the search what can be
seized.” Bartholomew, 221 F.3d at 429.
For these reasons, although a warrant
should be interpreted practically, it must
be sufficiently definite and clear so that
the magistrate, police, and search subjects
can objectively ascertain its scope. See
Groh, 540 U.S. at __, slip op. at 5.

[...]

In this case, there is no language in
the warrant that suggests that the premises
or people to be searched include Jane Doe,
Mary Doe, “all occupants” or anybody
else, save John Doe himself. Other
portions of the face sheet which describe
the date of the violation and the
supportin g probable cause do refer to the
attached typed affidavit. But this fact is
actually unhelpful to the officers, since it
demonstrates that where the face sheet was
intended to incorporate the affidavit, it
said so explicitly. As a matter of common
sense, as well as logic, the absence of a
reference to the affidavit must therefore be
viewed as negating any incorporation of
that affidavit.

That's Doe V Groody. Nothing really to do with strip searches whatsoever, but between the relationship with the warrant and the attached affadavit.

Another Slice of Bread

Americans use the most primitive imaginable voting system. Each voter gets a single mark, a lone check, a solitary scratch, for each race before them.

Lost in the Dark Ages, the mathematics of voting was reformulated by a dear, close friend of Thomas Jefferson's, the Marquis de Condorcet. Condorcet's system was based on the idea of a ballot where each voter would get to rank, 1st through last, each candidate. Here are the requirements of the ideal voting system:

Condorcet: If a candidate is preferred to every other candidate, one-on-one, that candidate should win.

Cloneproof: If a party runs 10 identical candidates, it should not increase their chances.

Monotonic: Increasing a candidate's ranking can't cause them to lose, decreasing can't cause them to win.

The Schulze and Tideman systems meet all these criteria.

For the voter, this system is less complicated than the system currently in place in Australia(STV).

We get one chance, every other year, to let our voices be heard. Don't limit the expression of the voter with our dark ages system.

Friday, October 28, 2005

I Gotz the GOP Blues

No Miers Or Libby
I gotz those GOP Blues
Katrina and Brownie
I gotz those GOP Blues
We have Social Security
I gotz those GOP Blues
No double you M D
I gotz those GOP Blues

Still a war in Iraq
I gotz the GOP Blues
Will polls ever come back
I gotz the GOP Blues

Indictments for DeLay
I gotz the GOP Blues
Abramoff and, Hey!
I gotz the GOP Blues
"So at the end of the year here, he finds in the Gallup Poll, right not only the most admired man in America, but he's the highest level that Gallup has ever found in the polls since 1948 when it started being most admired." from CNN

"The largest and most sustained approval rating in the history of these polls. Including a 93% approval rating by a WashPost/Abc News poll, the highest approval showing in the gallup poll, and an unchanged approval rating in the mid-80's for the last 4 months." from the Freep

Organic Food Laws Changed

Not in the House Bill, not in the Senate Bill, but in the Republican run "conference" the organic food laws were changed, as I discussed before here.

100% Organic food producers should simply _stop_ using the US organic label. There is no law that says they _have_ to put that Corporate-Republican subverted designation on their products. Make their own industry board. Make their own label. Wear it loud and proud. And don't let the scumsucking corporate chemocrats ruin it.

ONLY WE CAN CALL REGIMES ILLEGITIMATE

Says Democrat, Iraq War-Monger, and Ranking Member of the House International Relations Committee, on Iran's long standing refusal to recognize Israel.

Lantos goes so far as to compare it to Nazi Germany, whom "pseudo-sophisticates" and "appeasers" ignored. Does this jack ass really think Iran could invade _one_ of its neighbors? Of course not. If they did, would we attack them? I hope so.

"We demand, this time, the world take action, before it is too late." In other words, another pre-emptive war. It shoudl be noted that this mother fucker is too old to fight.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Correct Income Tax Scheme

Where e refers to the mathematical constant e, f refers to a flat rate, applied at all income rates, p refers to the maximum rate for infinite income (not including the flat portion, of course), i equals income, pr equals the poverty rate, and c is a constant.

Rate = f + p(1 - e^(-(i-pr) * c)

I would suggest f should be 3 (varying between 1 and 5), p should be 55, but must be greater than 50, and I have no idea what c should be yet.

Why tax people who earn less than the povery rate? The libertarians are basically right about the idea that if you don't pay anything, you won't care how it is spent. c should be crafted so that the logarithmic portion of the rate exceeds 50% at some defined point, perhaps 1,000,000,000 dollars.

Robert Fisk Points In Another Direction

Because the Syrian Interior Ministry guy was "not the kind to commit suicide", says Robert Fisk. Which implies he was killed by the Syrian secret services, and therefore, he was being killed to shut him up.

Whether or not he was killed, however, he didn't say anything to the UN, or on the radio, that implicates Syria. So why would they kill him for that?

Another UN Report failing

From the UN Report...

81. The ISF visited Abu Abass' house, accompanied by a member of Al-Ahbash, and
seized a computer, as well as a number of compact disks which were primarily of a
fundamentalist Islamic nature. Although the report on the search noted that most of the
documents stored on the computer were downloaded from the internet, there was no
indication that Mr. Abu Adass' home had internet access. Many of Mr. Abu Adass'
friends and relatives were interviewed extensively by the authorities (including by the
ISF and military intelligence) in the days immediately following the explosion. Mr. Abu
Adass himself, however, could not be located. On the day of the explosion 10 people
were questioned and over the course of next two months approximately 40 people were
interviewed. The Lebanese investigation further revealed that Mr. Abu Adass had been
employed at a computer shop in the summer of 2004, which was owned in part by Sheikh
Ahmed Al-Sani, who was a member of the Ahmed Miqati and Ismaíl Al-Khatib network.

This is from the Lebanese Investigation section of the UN report. The name "Ahmed Miqati and Ismaíl Al-Khatib network" refers to an al-Qaeda linked individuals. He had a boss who was in al-Qaeda, he was in the video taking credit...BLAME SYRIA!.

Guardian vs The United Nations

Written soon after the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister R Hariri, this Guardian UK articles includes lots of seemingly relevant details dismissed in the UN report, with the shakiest of reasons, contradicted by the facts as presented by the Guardian.

178. A number of sources, confidential and otherwise, provided information to UNIIIC
on the role and whereabouts of Mr. Abu Adass. Although the information provided has
not been independently verified, significantly, none of this source information supported
the theory that he was a lone suicide bomber acting for an Islamic fundamentalist group.
Indeed, all of the source information pointed to the likelihood of Mr. Abu Adass being
used by the Syrian and Lebanese authorities as a scapegoat for the crime, rather than
being the instigator of crime himself. For example, one witness claimed to have seen Mr.
Abu Adass in the hallway outside of General Ghazali's office in December 2004 in
Anjar. Another witness claimed that Mr. Abu Adass was currently held in prison in Syria
and will be killed once this investigation is over. According to him, Mr. Abu Adass had
no role in the assassination except as a decoy, and the videotape was recorded at gunpoint
approximately 45 days before the assassination. He later stated that General Assef
Shawkat forced Mr. Abu Adass to record the tape approximately 15 days before the
assassination in Damascus. He also stated that the tape was given to Al-Jazeera by a
woman with the nickname "Um Alaa." Another witness stated that the day after the
assassination Faysal Al-Rasheed insisted that the case had been solved and the
perpetrator was Mr. Abu Adass, as a suicide bomb and that Mr. Abu Adass's body was
still at the crime scene. Zuhir Saddik stated that in early February 2005, he had seen
Mr. Abu Adass at the Zabadane training camp in Syria, and that his information was that
Mr. Abu Adass had initially planned to commit the assassination but had changed his
mind at the last minute. He said that Mr. Abu Adass was subsequently killed by the
Syrians, and his body was placed in the vehicle containing the bomb, and thus was
destroyed in the crime scene.

Based on that, you can see, the Syrians have killed Adass, have him in jail, killed him and then put him in the exploding van, made him make a videotape at gunpoint, and have entertained him in the offices of the Generals, and was in a training camp. All hearsay, much of it contradictory.

Yesterday I Read

Some Links from Cursor.org, and I was especially interested in the article about identical editorials in different papers. Especially of interest to me was the follow on link from CJR Daily on the same tactic used against the Estate Tax, and how CJR Daily followed up.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Busy for a while

I'm really plugging away on my software, which means I haven't been keeping up with the news. Read your Cursor, have fun with Skippy, and read the Fitzgerald report rather than the hype.

Today I read this interview by Jack Rakove, a named Chair at Stanford's Dept of History, and was looking at this definition of Fascism from Mussolini.

The Rakove article really makes me want to spend a year just reading good and important books. For instance, my non-western history is lacking. What's the closest they've come to a government where everyone was elected or appointed by those who were? How'd it turn out?

It's been a pretty decent day, though. I think I'm back down to 30 bugs/features for the next(1st) round of beta. That could not take a month to finish.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Bush ? Israel

Getting to "Israel" when one starts getting into politics doesn't take long, but mastery of the topic isn't easy. The history isn't so long, but there are a plethora of wars to learn about. I'm sure you already know the Straights of Tiran, and how it occured five years after the Cuba blockade? Of course.

The consensus in the US Congress is pro-Israel. Less immediately relevant than the members of the US Senate's Foreign Relations committee is the membership of the US House's International Relations committee. There's not much hope from either party, not even a little. I say that only to defend the two or three people who are decent.

The far right, usually from anti-semitism, and the far left, usually based on anti-apartheid/anti-occupation sympathies, tends to be anti-Israel. The people themselves, the Israelis and Palestinians, have more than a little land on the line, and more than a few differences. With all the real estate and blood letting over the years, it is almost impossible to find a detached "local."

Disreali, Peel, a UN created state, Irgun and Hamas. It is a mess.

So, I have long put a lot of credence into Rick Perlstein's Jesus Landing Pad thesis, which states that Bush's policy is, in large part, "pro-Israel" in the sense that the Holy Land must be safe for the imminent second coming. Jesus is waiting for everyone to put their toys away, too.

But Bush, we all know, isn't really in charge. He doesn't have the mental faculties to detect, nevermind foil, the extra-curricular plans of his less theological minded lackeys (namely, Rumsfeld and Cheney), conservatives in the more ultra-right mold.

So, what the hell am I talking about? Bush is far more anti-Israel than he can afford to have you believe. Clues. The Franklin/AIPAC investigation and Gaza withdrawal. Admittedly, Franklin was caught as a result of an accident, but it is very rare that leakers are prosecuted. In fact, you probably can't name a leaker case. Motions to Suppress the leaked material, and charges later dropped? Sure, you can name Ellsberg. Will the Franklin case be dropped? If so, you can ignore this post.

And as the blogger known as Bionic Octopus noted, the Gaza withdrawal is not some high-minded gesture of the Israelis or the PM Sharon.

What am I saying? Neither party is willing to make a public stand against Israel. But that this Republican President, in part because the Jews are, in fact, not Christians at all(Heavens above! Say it isn't so!), has less tolerance for Israel than his recent Democrat opponents.

In the Franklin case, the result is ok. The Gaza withdrawal is little more than a PR stunt, especially as it relates to the Synagogues they intentionally left, but it is some action.

It is entirely clear that even though the political parties are in agreement, there are plenty of people, for good reasons or ill, who don't favor Israel. Do them a favor and just chew on this idea, without spreading it around.

Friday, October 21, 2005

The UN Report on Hariri vs The Guardian UK

Page 10 of the report, which describes "the crime" in full, is as follows.

38. Shortly after the blast, the Director of Al-Jazeera TV in Beirut received a
telephone call from a man who stated that the Nasra and Jihad Group in Greater Syria
claimed responsibility for the assassination of Mr. Hariri. This message was broadcast
shortly thereafter.

That seems to be it. This story in the Guardian, published very soon after the event, gives a lot more detail than the UN report.

Little more than half an hour after the explosion a man speaking in "poor Arabic, or just pretending to have poor Arabic" called the Beirut office of al-Jazeera television with a statement saying: "The Nasra & Jihad Group in Greater Syria claims responsibility for the execution of the agent Rafik Hariri, in the name of the oppressed, the Nasra and the Jihad."

A little later, Reuters news agency also received a call from a man described as "using a false Palestinian accent" and "shouting in an authoritative voice" who said: "Write down, write down and don't talk. We are the Nasra & Jihad group in greater Syria. On this day have given due punishment to the infidel Rafik Hariri, so that may be an example to others of his sort."

At 2.19pm a man speaking in "very good Arabic", phoned al-Jazeera and said a tape could be found in a tree near the UN building in Beirut. A member of al-Jazeera's staff went to look but failed to find it. A second staff member joined the search and the video was eventually retrieved.

The tape showed a bearded young man claiming responsibility for the assassination on behalf of the "Nasra and Jihad Group of Greater Syria".

...

In their first floor flat in the Arab University district of Beirut, Taysir Abu Adas and his family were also watching the television and they recognised the bearded young man as their missing son, Ahmad. Ahmad, of Palestinian origin, was 22 and unemployed. Three years earlier he had become deeply interested in religion and sometimes led prayers at the al-Huri mosque. About a month before Hariri's assassination he told his family he had met a "new friend" at the mosque.

Early on January 16, someone blew a car horn outside the family's flat and Ahmad went out, apparently to meet his "new friend". As he left, he borrowed LE2,000 (about 80p) from his mother and said he would be back in a few hours.

Salon's "New Pentagon Papers"

So far, it is mostly name-dropping and allegations. I get some credit for having mentioned Feith and Luti in the same sentence a lot. Luti spent a lot of the post-war period completely out of the news. A few telling details, which aren't truly surprising, like "These internal talking points seemed to be a mélange crafted from obvious past observation and intelligence bits and pieces of dubious origin. They were propagandistic in style, and all desk officers were ordered to use them verbatim in the preparation of any material prepared for higher-ups and people outside the Pentagon." are included. I suppose this is the money quote, but this isn't a "new pentagon papers" because there is no internal source material or leaked minutes/notes, at all...

Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq -- more bases from which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, and better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional ruling sheikdoms. Maintaining OPEC on a dollar track and not a euro and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision also played a role. These more accurate reasons for invading and occupying could have been argued on their merits -- an angry and aggressive U.S. population might indeed have supported the war and occupation for those reasons. But Americans didn't get the chance for an honest debate.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Media Matters is Kicking O'Reilly's Butt

Media Matters is doing the right job. Check out a post from today about O'Reilly. They have a quote from O'Reilly saying "[i]f you attack someone publicly ... you have an obligation to face the person you are smearing. If you don't, you are a coward."

O'Reilly called Media Matters "paid assassins" who will _never_ appear on Fox News Channel. In other words, O'Reilly Calls Himself A Coward, because he is not fulfilling his obligation to face the people he is smearing.

National Review's John Derbyshire

Robertson-Chavez Fallout: the "New Tribes Mission" Story

Interesting stuff from Nikolas Kozloff on the history and current situation in Venezuela in the wake of Pat Robertson's murderous, slavering comments. Thanks to Bartholomew's Notes on Religion for the head's up. His summary is here.

New Tribes Mission goes back to the Truman days, writes Kozloff, and insinuated their way into the country secretively, and then moved around a lot, especially near pockets of uranium. Pro-US rulers (military dictator Jimenez and anti-communist leftist Betancourt) eased them in. Kozloff has a lot of good history here, and I recommend it if you have the twenty or so minutes it would take to read the article.

The result is that evangelical missionaries are no longer going to be allowed visas for Venezuela.

Did I mention that New Tribes Mission has already been banned from Colombia, and is suspected of espionage, fomenting revolutions, ethnocide, and other neato-things?
UPDATE: I said New Tribes has already been banned from Colombia, and although this is accurate, based on the COHA article, they have since been let back in. Have they been banned? Yes. Are they currently banned? No. Thanks to Dean for forcing me to recheck this. From the COHA article linked above...

Shortly thereafter, Colombian president Cesar Turbay Ayala prohibited the Summer Institute of Linguistics, New Tribes and District 1355 from operating on Colombian soil. The president declared that the missionary groups had lent support to unauthorized overseas transnational companies which were searching for strategic resources.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Pro Bush Post

The CO who was responsible for picking the guys to "chat" with Bush would have been handed their *sses on a platter if they had chosen anyone less patriotic than Captain America or Harriet Miers. If you expected tough questioning, you were watching the wrong channel.

Former Democrat Rep Frank Ballance (NC-1) (2002-2004) was sentenced to 4 years in prison for bilking the charity he set up of millions.

It looks like Harriet Meirs wrote this, which doesn't sound retarded at all.

So far Bush has not gotten the United States in a simultaneous war with China and Russia.

[*] Venice, by itself, was at war with the Ottomans. Venice, by itself, was the subject of an attack of almost every major European Power at one point. Hard to really call it a "balance" of power between Milan, Firenza(Florence), Naples, the Papacy, and Venice.

Citizens for Tax Justice have some of, if not the, best tax impact calculators outside the government. Been around for 20 years, the head of it, Robert McIntyre, has a column at Prospect.org called The Taxonomist.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Honest

I really _had_ to add this section to my program. Perhaps sub-consciously I was avoiding it. At one level, I was encouraged to find out to find out the database design for this section was a lot easier than I earlier imagined. I don't expect much trouble at all integrating this at each phase where it might be necessary (ooh, just had a good though, brb). OK, so, freak it all, I still have more work to do. Like I said, I have a tester who has tested my code professionally before (as part of a succesful project, I might add). But as I add these two (one half done, one I am discussing today) features, I find I must push back the delivery date.

Now, since no one is (yet) paying me, or has established a deadline, I don't feel too terribly bad.

But the point of the program is to make me the person who exceeded all others in service to humanity.

Metrics of War

Of course, there is no real metric. That said, I believe the most useful one is "attacks/day." In September of 2005, the number of attacks by the opposition rose to 2,700, surpassing the previous high of roughly 2387. According to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, PDF page 20. This document changes a lot, so I am reprinting the graphic here, without permission.

Footnote 37 reads

Alexandra Zavis, "Iraqi Insurgents Unleash Deadly Bombings, Attacks Despite U.S. Offensive," Associated Press, May 11, 2005.
Paul Garwood, "Surge in U.S. Troop Deaths Raises Concerns That Insurgents Retargeting," Associated Press, May 24, 2005.
Carol Williams, " Soldiers Get Extra Layer of Defense; Humvee crews are still not out of danger, but new protective plating provides a little more security on the hostile roadways of Iraq," Los Angeles Times, July 29, 2005.
Richard Oppel Jr., Eric Schmitt, and Thom Shanker, "Baghdad Bombings Raise New Questions About US Strategy in Iraq," New York Times, September 17, 2005. 65 to 75 attacks per day.
Bradley Graham, "Zarqawi `Hijacked' Insurgency; US General Says Foreign Fighters Now Seen as Main Threat," Washington Post, September 28, 2005. 90 attacks per day.

(Ed: retypeset for clarity)

The Iraq Index, same issue, says tht the total number of killed or captured insurgents is over 50,000. There has never been an estimate that there were more than 20,000. The military, apparently, hasn't released a new estimate lately, it was "between 15 and 20,000" iirc.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Organic Food, Corporate Profits

There used to be a great peice online about Anglo-Dutch Unilever owning the United Africa Company, a funnel for the profits of African industry into Europe, after colonization ended. Anyone have a good link for that?

Small Time Tidbits

My State Democratic Party e-mailed everyone a link to this peice in the WaPo. The shortest version: Democrats should concentrate on pandering to the masses and winning, rather than be right. Go Dems! Two Clinton officials, as if you needed to know.

In other news from my state. The new State Senate President is against slot machines (yeah) even at the racetracks (yeah) but is OK with slot machines if the state runs them. But, the real kicker is that the Nashua Telegraph reports him as being of the mind that "there's no need to advance the idea in 2006 because the state has an $82 million budget
surplus."

At least the Republican Senator is better than our Democrat Governor, who took the absurd position that he wouldn't be for "expanded gambling unless he became convinced the state's quality of life would not diminish from it." Again, according to the Nashua Telegraph.

My Slice of Bread

The SEIU has a contest for a good idea. The first prize is $100,000 and there are two second prizes of $50,000. This was my submitted idea, entitled "Rational Labor Laws":

Under current law, any Union which gets higher wages for its members shares those gains with all employees, not just Union members.

When the company makes a profit it does not share them with everyone. The stockholders get paid, and only the stockholders.

So it should be with Unions.

In many states, Unions are (mostly) compensated by non-Union members with fees. The fees are calculated based on the amount of Union money spent on bargaining. These fees are dictated by "union security" clauses. It is not a perfect system, but it is reasonable.

Unions in so-called "right to work" states still have to represent and protect employees who choose not to pay Union dues. This is just as reasonable as forcing the Company to share its profits with non-stockholders, and should be stopped now.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Bad Bush Interview

Carole Coleman, of Ireland's RTE News, had a one-on-one interview with President Bush. Thanks to Today in Iraq for the link. It is an 11 minute video, during which President Bush, yet again, repeats many of his silliest claims. For instance, that seven prosthetic hands make up for any number of 10s of thousands of dead civilian Iraqis. He repeatedly has to demand that he is allowed to finish the answers the attentive have heard a thousand times before.

I'll just point out how he mangles the Bible, specificallyMatthew 7:3. For those that don't know, Matthew is the first book of the New Testament, even though all evidence points to Mark appearing first, chronologically. Bush says one of the great admonitions in the Bible is "[D]on't try to take a speck out of your eye if I've got a log in my own." The link in this paragraph shows many different translations of Matthew 7:3, none of which say that.

The Bible warns people not to even look at the mote in others eyes. GW Bush thinks the proscription is against taking the mote out of the eye of the other. He definitely thinks Saddam's mote was worth a grab, eh?

First Draw Down the Mercenaries

The armed mercenaries, employed by the United States and other powers in Iraq, should be the first forces to be removed. They are the worst, they are the least accountable, they are overpaid. Get them out first.

I'd be much obliged that if you, too, concur, you'd post something like it on your blog.

On the rebuilding of Iraq. Did Japan or Germany struggle to rebuild an Army, as quickly as possible, after WWII? No. In fact, the effort to rapidly, and hastily, rebuild Armed Forces is holding Iraq back, and yet it is seen as the #1 priority by those in the United States who run things, especially the President and SECDEF.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

B.. B.. Be.. Beta? No

Today I set things up for beta testing my website. Within minutes of everything being set, my laptop shut down for lack of power. The power cable needs to be replaced. That'll be a few days.

Thanks to everyone who has helped test the program so far. There are still some things that need doing, but the framework and enough to move forward are in place. I won't be online much until I get the new power adapter.

Tonight I am attending a lecture on Exaction and Impact Fees, defined by State Law and set at the local level, for recouping capital expenditures needed as a result of new development.

H Meirs, The End of Legal Abortion, My Proof

Senator Brownback of Kansas is as much a "pro-life" candidate as any Senator. This morning on Good Morning America (transcript not freely available), according to numerous sources, Brownback said that if H Meirs considers "Roe V Wade" "settled law" he will vote against her.

Meir's decades long born-again status, her closeness an ideological affinity with President Bush and his nomination of her, suggests to me there is no chance at all she is pro-Roe.

Therefore, and perhaps I take some risk in suggesting this, Senator Brownback is plotting. The most likely plot is "Let's take the most rabid pro-life person possible, and get them through the process by having rabid pro-lifers question her credentials." This is what I think is true. Less likely, but also possible, is that this is some sort of sacrificial nomination. I do not believe this.

I don't, in all likelihood, win or lose anything for being right or wrong. I am, I suspect, better than half-a**ed at nosing out plots. This will help prove, or disprove, that. However, to avoid hurting the Bush administration, perhaps they are planning to defer until after his term is over?

Fight Meirs on Cronyism. A right wing blog I have been dealing with lately, From the Bleachers, has the link to this helpful chart of non-Judge appointments to the Supreme Court, from FindLaw, Justice with No Prior Experience. Many of these were Governors, Cabinet Secretaries, US Senators, Attorneys General, one co-drafter of the US Constitution, and one Chief of the SEC. Eleven are less than that, and most seem more qualified than Meirs. You can also notice that none of the great Presidents are on the list, except A Lincoln, who I think has an important place in history for his being on the right side of the Civil War, but was not, otherwise, a great President.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

President's Press Conference

So... amazingly... dumb. This guy wasn't qualified to be a Governor. Anyway...

He TWICE referred to the fact that "no new refineries" have been built in the US for over 25 years. He blamed environmental regulations. What a piece of shit liar is the President of the United States! Here is Nader's Public Citizen debunking this crap. This info has been out there a long time.

He said he took full responsibility for everything that went wrong during Katrina. Again, I ask, what the heck does that mean? It _seems_ to mean "no more questions, because I've already said I took responsibility."

Did anyone else hear him talk about how he's appointed "people" and nominated "people" referring to blacks? It was weird.

On Meirs. He called her brilliant. A freaking mutual admiration society. He called her work "stellar." A friend said "a distant, dim star."

UPDATE1: The terrorists, yet again, are trying to "shake wills." This is the assholic tactic of suggesting that anyone who is against Bush's plan has, in fact, had their will shaken.

Bush refers to feeding energy back to the grid as something "we're not there yet." But lots of people are already there.

Kurdistan Regional Government?

The KRG website is unclear, as it seems to refer to a government of Kurdistan that I know was in place before 2003, but now has vague status. The article is called "There is no Iraq" by Cenk Uygur, and it begins well...

Everyone is wrong -- from the arrogant neo-clowns who brought you this war to the mindless bureaucrats who maintain it to the well-intentioned intellectuals that are grasping for a decent and humane way out. Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn't put Iraq back together again.

Which reminds me of my pre-war Iraq website (front page slightly altered after the invasion began.). When I knew the war was going to be started no matter what, I tried to come up with an alternative invasion. This, to invade "Kurdistan" and "The Fertile Crescent," leaving US troops only on the borders between the regions, was my bright idea. And, the webpage with perhaps the greatest lasting power, my update of a CIA published timeline of Iraqi history. I added some things the CIA seems to have "forgotten" to include, and possibly this language map of the region, with some text, entitled "Half the Trouble in the World?"

Monday, October 03, 2005

Ah, The Sweet Breath of Cronyism

No years on the bench, born-again Christian, said Bush was the "smartest man [she] ever met."

What better qualifications are there? Here's a huge gob of spit in the eye of the merit and mental faculties.

Thanks to Direland, I see two paragraphs from the David Frum National Review peice, including one that was deleted.

In the White House that hero worshiped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. She served Bush well, but she is not the person to lead the court in new directions - or to stand up under the criticism that a conservative justice must expect.

She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.